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Archive for April 4, 2010

Water Wars

April 4, 2010 by mike.

The Colorado River that used to run into Mexico and sustain a river environment in that country has been diverted into farm irrigation in SW US States. Mexicans who might have been able to engage in subsistence farming in Mexico have crossed the borders to be migrant workers tending fields that are irrigated by the water that used to flow into Mexico. And some crazy angry US citizens blame the Mexicans for crossing the border to follow the water of the Colorado River, the water of their life.

These resource battles and population displacements are increasing around the planet. Maybe there are simply too many human beings here now. Can we talk about sustainable human populations without talking about genocide or having the conversation derailed by the “right to life” of the unborn?

Our other option is to keep looking and talking about shocking disasters.
clipped from news.yahoo.com
UN’s Ban calls Aral Sea ’shocking disaster’
Ban Ki-moon

NUKUS, Uzbekistan – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called the drying up of the Aral Sea one of the planet’s most shocking disasters and urged Central Asian leaders to step up efforts to solve the problem.

Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the sea has shrunk by 90 percent since the rivers that feed it were largely diverted in a Soviet project to boost cotton production in the arid region.

The shrunken sea has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, leaning over as if they dropped from the air. The sea’s evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.
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